In personal care applications, consumers are increasingly demanding formulations that provide multiple benefits. The present invention discloses the use of mono-, di-, and polyol phosphate esters which when used in personal care formulations can provide wide ranging benefits such as, but not limited to, unique sensory experience, enhanced moisturization, increased conditioning, improved delivery of active ingredients and compatibility. These molecules can provide many of the above benefits listed either by themselves or in certain cases can have synergistic effects with principal functioning agents resulting in increased efficacy or a reduction in the amount of the agent used. These molecules can provide these benefits either while in use and/or after rinsing which makes them unique and opens the possibility to be used in both “leave on” and “rinse off” products.
Currently the following methodologies have been adopted to overcome some of the problems of multiple benefits: amphipilic molecules such as surfactants for foaming, cleansing and lathering; oils and humectants such as glycerin to provide moisturizing, polymers for aiding the deposition of active ingredients or pertinent materials (such as silicones).
Materials that have a low surface energy, such as, for example, polyolefin polymers, have hydrophobic surfaces. The hydrophobic properties of such materials are not desirable in some applications and methods for hydrophilizing low surface energy substrates, including treatment with surfactants and/or high energy treatment, are known. Each of these methods has significant limitations. Surfactant treatments tend to wash off when a treated substrate is exposed to water and the charges imparted to the surface of a treated substrate by high energy treatment tend, particularly in the case of a thermoplastic polymer substrate, to dissipate. The hydrophilic properties of such surfactant treated substrates and high energy treated substrates thus tend to exhibit limited durability. Furthermore, the surfactants that are rinsed off of a treated substrate by exposure to water alter the properties of the water, such as lowering the surface tension, which may also be undesirable.